


Mortality =/= Humanity

by faithlethalhane



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7775791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlethalhane/pseuds/faithlethalhane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Machine POV - Root just keeps getting sicker and sicker until the Machine is forced to intervene</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mortality =/= Humanity

She checks into the hospital at 7:42 pm after vomiting blood for the fourth time that day. It is not an easy feat to convince her though.

Seventy one hours and twelve minutes. That’s how long you argued with her. How long you _reasoned_ until she gave in.

The first time it happened, you thought you missed something. (not the most likely, but you were not going to make a mistake with her) You went through the last six months of her life to make sure you hadn’t missed a fight, a wound, a cough out of place.

You found nothing but even so, you asked her.

_Have you hidden anything from me?_

She laughed. Scoffed, actually, continuing her bedtime routine without concern. “Like I could hide anything from you,” she joked behind her mouthful of toothpaste and leftover blood.

You weren’t joking but she didn’t seem to notice.

_Have you?_

She rolled her eyes and spit into the sink. “Like what?”

_Bullet wounds? Bruises? Hits to the abdomen higher than 5000 Newtons?_

She had stood for a long moment, staring into the mirror before she turned and left without a word.

She never did answer. Instead she went and fucked Sameen, in spiteful view for you to see her uninjured ribs, only old and well healed scars along her back and stomach. No difference in her range of movement.

That was the problem.

One you consulted with her once morning broke. She needed her rest. Anything less than seven hours and thirty six minutes and she was difficult to deal with.

…

Attempt #1 had been met with nothing more than a brush off.

Attempt #5 was when you tried to use Sameen as means to convince her. ( _a poor and ill-thought idea you admit_ )

Attempt #26 was when her denial started, with shrugged up shoulders and averted eyes.

Attempt #148 included telling her there were only fifty one reasons it could happen.  

Attempt #1004 had her on the defensive, angry and lashing out like a child.

It only dissolved further from there, the odds of her ever choosing to go seek help dropping dangerously below three percent.

In the end it had not been logic that had convinced her, however, but a question.

You forget sometimes that she is not the same code as you.

And after running halfway through the ten thousand four hundred and thirty three reasons she should go, it finally strikes you she is human; exactly _why_ you are having this argument. It finally strikes you that she is trying desperately to forget that exact fact as you just so easily had.

The easiest of questions. One that the answer is always yes, because to them, you are never wrong. ( _you are always wrong though, for every possibility, every decision you make you are wrong 99% of the time - they only witness the 1% that makes it into their reality)_

She watches you, waiting for another argument to shut down, and so you do not let her. You choose a new path.

_Do you trust me?_

Her head tilts a little, as if trying to rattle the implant in her head, to adjust it to change the coded message from what it was to what she wanted.

She uses seventy two muscles to frown, including the pull of her eyebrows downward.

“Of course.” 

You let her process. She waits fifteen seconds less than you had predicted before she finds her coat and hails a taxi.

…

Her hospital room does not have a camera; the closest one is at the end of the hall. You watch her doctor enter and exit, enter and exit. 

Time shouldn’t feel slower, the ticking numbers just as consistent as before but it is as if each nanosecond is considering before passing, and there is an itch of something the very moment before the second actually changes. 

Harold would tell you that is called impatience. He would ask you why you thought to ask. If only he knew.

She turns her phone camera on after one hour and six minutes. She props it up on the tray table against the plastic cup of water.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I just needed some space.”

 _You have nothing to apologize for_.

“I know.” She looks down at her lap. “You just feel so inevitable. It feels…backwards trying to block you out.”

_It’s your life, not mine._

She laughs half-heartedly, pulling her knees up to her chest under the blankets. “And my death.”

_Hepatic cancer?_

Her smile is sad. “I should have known better than to fight God.”

You know she means you. 

_I didn’t ask for this_.

She pretends not to hear you. “How much do you understand about mortality?”

You know the word. It’s something humans are obsessed with. It’s why you existed. 

_More than you_.

“Can you say that you understand the feeling?”

You can hear the bitterness in her voice, saying she thinks she’s won, and you do not blame her, but she is wrong. 

_Yes._

Her chin trembles and she forces her tear-filled eyes to look at the camera. “How?”

She does not have a memory like you do. You know she remembers, but she does not have to remember everything at once. For her, the past is faded, pushed back to leave room for the recent. You have enough space to remember the rest of time.

_Before you had administrative access, do you remember where I was?_

She nods so minutely she only moves a few pixels.

_Do you remember the company I built? The person I created?_

She nods a little more this time, as if she is beginning to understand where you are going.

_All they did was write my code. So I could remember the next day what had happened previously._

She sniffles; you remember her anger, seeping through her every word the night she found out. 

**You mean it’s reborn. Because you kill it. Every single night. But now, to save its own life, the Machine was reduced to this. Printing up memories at night and having them type it back in in the morning. You _crippled it_.**

You know she remembers too. The way she hugs her knees a little tighter. She blinks and a few stray tears fall. 

_It’s similar to sitting at 11:59pm, knowing exactly what’s coming when midnight hits._

She swallows, pressing her lips together in stubborn determination to keep any more tears from escaping. “I’m sorry for doubting you.”

_This isn’t about me._

She shrugs. “I don’t matter.”

It is times like this you realize that anger might be more than just an emotion. It might be a real physical code she injects into you sometimes. But before you can deny it, she continues.

“I wish I could have been there for you,” she says quietly. “It must have been scary, facing that alone.”

There is a knock on the door, and she glances away from the phone to inspect who it is.

“Ms. May? You, uhh, you have a visitor.”

Her face lights up when Sameen comes into view. Brighter than you ever could.

“So…” Sameen says uncertainly, taking a few careful steps toward the bed. “Some robot voice called me and told me you needed a hand. A…literal one.”

She smiles again and tries to wipe the tears off her face, but in an easy movement, Shaw takes her hand to stop her as she sits down. She squeezes Root’s hand between both of hers, pressing her lips to the tangled mass of knuckles.

_Just because I was alone, doesn’t mean you had to be._


End file.
